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Chapter 7: All Dreams Must Cease

It is out of your dreams that the misery has happened, and one has to be aware of this phenomenon. Don’t throw responsibility on the other, otherwise you will create other dreams: see that it is you who are projecting. But it is difficult to see.

In a theater, in a cinema hall, you look at the screen, you never look at the back - the projector is at the back. The film is not really there on the screen; on the screen it is just a projection of shadow and light. The film exists just at the back, but you never look at that. And the projector is there.

Your mind is at the back of the whole thing, and the mind is the projector. But you always look at the other because the other is the screen.

When you are in love the person seems beautiful, no comparison. When you hate, the same person seems the ugliest, and you never become aware of how the same person can be the ugliest and the same person can be the most beautiful.

When you are in love the same person is a flower, a rose, a rose garden with no thorns. When you dislike, when you hate, the flowers disappear. There are only thorns, no longer a garden - the ugliest, the dirtiest, you would not like even to see. And you never become aware of what you are doing. How can roses disappear so soon, in a single minute? Not even a gap of a single minute is needed. This moment you are in love and the next moment you are in hate; the same person, the same screen, and the whole story changes.

Just watch and you will be able to see that this person is not the point: you are projecting something. When you project love the person looks lovely, when you project hate the person looks ugly. The person is not; you have not seen the real person at all. You cannot see the reality through the eyes of the mind.

If you really want to know what the truth is, scriptures won’t help. Neither will going to the Himalayas be of any help. Only one thing can help: start looking at things without the mind. Look at the flower and don’t allow the mind to say anything. Just look at it. It is difficult because of an old habit of interpreting. You go on interpreting, and interpretations differ. Interpretations depend on the mind.

Mulla Nasruddin asked the court for a divorce. He said to the judge, “Now it is impossible. Every day I come back home and I find my wife is hiding some man or other in the closet.”

Even the judge was shocked and he said, “Every day?”

Nasruddin said, “Every day! And not the same person either - every day a new person.”

Just to console Nasruddin the judge said, “Then you must be very much hurt. You come home tired and you think the wife must be waiting for you, to receive and welcome and be loving. And you come home and you find a new man is hiding in the closet every day. It is very bad.”

Nasruddin said, “Yes, I feel very hurt - because I never have any room to hang my clothes.”